University of Florida

My main interests are how major developmental transitions like puberty affect health outcomes and identity development. A central aim of my research is to better understand why some individuals navigate transitions that everyone goes through in their lives more adaptively than others. I use a variety of methods in my research, including surveys, interviewing, diaries, computational text analysis, content coding, and structural equation modeling.

In my current position, I am working with Drs. Susan Bluck and Carma Bylund on an NIH-funded grant to analyze narrative mechanisms that may help individuals navigate the end of life. I hope to translate the methods I have acquired in my postdoc to research that improves parent-child communication in conversations about puberty and, subsequently, mental health outcomes for youth.

During my PhD research with Dr. Jane Mendle, much of my work focused on understanding how girls make meaning out of change during puberty and which aspects of puberty are most distressing through a blend of content coding, topic modeling, and structural equation modeling.